More government school lunacy

(via Boortz)

New Jersey teacher threatened with dismissal over posting of President Junior's picture on school bulletin board.

Shiba Pillai-Diaz, a teacher at Crossroads Middle School, was told to remove a picture of President Bush and his wife, Laura, from her bulletin board before being told by her principal to "get your stuff and get out," according to her version of events.

This the alleged story: Teacher puts up a picture of the President and First Lady... "and pictures of the president's dog, the Oval Office and the Declaration of Independence. She said she also had a picture of Air Force One, and a poster with a signature of all the presidents."

Parents come in for a school function and whine about how she should put up a picture of Lurch as well, or take down the picture of the President. Following their complaints to the school, "Jim Warfel, the school principal, tells Pillai-Diaz that she has disrupted the school with her 'inflammatory politics.' Warfel told Pillai-Diaz to hand over her keys to her classroom and leave the building."

School Superintendent Gary McCartney notes "pictures of the president are 'openly displayed' in all district schools. A teacher at the Monmouth Junction School has displayed a portrait of President Bush for four years, without incident." McCartney adds that the teacher was not fired, but was expected to return to work yesterday.

The problem was never the picture, according to McCartney, "...but rather a zealous misuse of seventh- and eighth-grade student instructional time."

According to his version of events, she once told pupils she was "glad they were not old enough to vote." She has also been accused of telling a student, "You should be ashamed to be a Democrat."

Pillai-Diaz denies this, stating that "you would have to be incredibly stupid to say those things to a student ... I don't talk politics with the kids."

It remains to be seen whose version is the most accurate, but one thing is for sure, Pillai-Diaz is already well on the way to Media Whore™ status with appearances on Good Morning America and the O'Reilly Factor. She has also (predictably) hired a lawyer.

It's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for someone who appears (on the surface, at least) to simply be cashing in on her 15 minutes of fame and some paid time off from her job. It is perfectly appropriate to have a photo of the current President in the classroom - it's inappropriate for teachers to berate 7th and 8th graders with their personal politics. It remains to be seen if that's what Pillai-Diaz was doing, but the fact that she's already hired a lawyer and hit the media circuit doesn't make her look very good.

10/6 UPDATE:

Jeff and the lovely Mrs. Holmes have convinced me to eat crow on my take on this story. The fact that Pillai-Diaz is not a union member already speaks volumes in her favor, and Mrs. Holmes reports that her performance on the O'Reilly Factor was sincere. Pillai-Diaz spent yesterday in talks with the superintendent and her attorney apparently trying to resolve the situation. I guess we'll see what happens - perhaps she's not the media-whore that my knee-jerk reaction indicated.